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Been craving Indian for so long now, but I’ve always been so intimidated by the recipes since the ingredient list is a huuuuge laundry list of items. But today I had some extra time and decided to experiment. I followed this Dairy Free Paleo Chicken Tikka Masala Recipe straight through and I must say it didn’t come out half bad! Not as good as my favorite Indian restaurant does it, but a comparable recipe considering my own two hands made this from scratch. Pretty proud of my self right now for not using any premade sauces. Yep.

Grilling the marinated chicken

Finished product put together. Yeah looks a bit weird..I was starving and just quickly put it in a small serving bowl. There was no time for a photo shoot especially cooking/preparing this for over a half hour after a long day walking miles around New York City. Made it again so I can fix the picture. Still wasn’t sure which way was the best to picture this. I lack artistic vision.

Now all I need to do to complete this is find a paleo naan recipe. If anyone has one that you recommend, please let me know!

I cheated today. But it was for something special – the cronut! Not one of those imposters that everyone’s been trying to recreate. It was the original. Woke up at 5:15 this morning to head to the bakery. Got there around 6 and waited until 8 for the bakery to open. Thought it would be quick from there. Nope. Waited for another hour or so since the line moved so slowly. Then after a LONG wait, I finally got my coveted cronut. I ran home and indulged (yes, cronut at 9 am for breakfast) This months was coconut so I just had to get it before the end of the month. Boy was it sweet. I haven’t had sugar like this in a while so the coconut icing seemed super sweet to me. It was an interesting contrast from the coconut cream filling in the middle because it wasn’t sweet at all, a bit lacking in sweetness, reminding me of something along the lines of condensed milk. The croissant part of the cronut itself wasn’t as soft and flaky like a regular croissant as I expected. I assume the deep frying (I think that’s how its made?) is what caused the dough to be a bit more tough. So with that adventure accomplished and now able to cross it off my list, I have to say I’m not sure if it was worth the wait. I had huge expectations given all the hype in the media.

Moving onto the waffles. I recently picked up a waffle maker from Bed Bath and Beyond – $30 by Cuisinart to tackle some of the waffle recipes. I followed the recipe from PaleOMG here (as I get most of my recipes)

I topped it off a mixed berry compote. Really easy – just heat up some blueberries and strawberries in a saucepan for about 5-8 minutes.

Someone help me before I eat this whole loaf. I’m already 1/4 into it and am so stuffed but can’t stop eating!! I need help. Stat.

This is what I’m about to stuff my whole body with. It’s absolutely amazing. It’s not over banana-flavored which sometimes is overwhelming. It’s the perfect amount and then the chocolate chips and walnut pieces mixed in, YUM!! SO much better than the previous banana bread recipe I posted a while back. That recipe has nothing on this one. So let me get to the recipe. I came across it on chowstalker, which brought me to here.

I changed the ingredients a bit, so here’s the list according to how I tweaked it:

Ingredients:

2 cups almond flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 pinch sea salt

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chocolate chips (Enjoy Life brand) or a bit more depending on your preference

2 eggs

2 well ripened banana (the riper the better)

Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl (almond flour, baking powder, salt, walnuts, chocolate chips). Mix the wet ingredients in another (whisked egg, mashed bananas). Fold the wet ingredients into the large bowl of dry ingredients. Transfer it to a loaf pan and bake for roughly 30 minutes at 350 F.

Side story: I almost burnt down my new apartment for this banana bread and it was SO worth it. Ok maybe I didn’t exactly burn it down. But the oven started smoking during preheat and I wasn’t sure why. Apparently new ovens have to run a while to burn off the oil that is on it. So slight mishap and delay that almost made me give up this recipe. But I’m glad I didn’t and was worth all the trouble I had to go through (fanning the apartment out with all the smoke for a while). Seriously. Try it.

Yeah, I know. I’ve disappeared for a while. And even longer than last time. I apologize. It’s taken me a lot longer to settle into this new apartment that I thought it would. And with all this mess, I haven’t been cooking much lately. But I do try my best as I hate eating out two days in a row. Few nights ago I made tilapia croquettes, which was fun. I typically eat tilapia as a filet so it was good to swap it up a bit and make it something else. I came across the recipe here and pretty much followed it straight through.

The pictures a little blurry…my bad. I guess I was really hungry that day and just wanted to get the picture taken so I can dig in.

I really was a fan of the aioli that went on top of the croquettes. Really gave it an extra degree of flavor. Adding this recipe to my rotation of foods. Yum.

I’ve been MIA recently..haven’t posted in 5 days. So busy with moving. Trying to pack, buy new furniture, all that nonsense. It’s keeping me pretty occupied. But I made this recipe a few days ago, that I found here.

Followed this recipe pretty much straight through. Only change I made in the recipe was that I used chicken breasts instead of thighs. It was a hit in the family – there wasn’t even enough to go around for seconds! Ended up making it again for dinner 2 days later since it was so well received.

Ground chicken was on sale this week at the grocery store – something I don’t see often, so I figured I’d give it a try. I made this recipe a while back but it didn’t have enough of a kick that I was looking for. Added/substituted other ingredients from my previous run at this and this time it came out much better, much more tastier.

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground chicken

2 eggs

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/3 cup onion, chopped

One jalapeño pepper, chopped

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Few fresh basil leaves, chopped

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon chili powder

Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. I like to use my hands to really get it mixed well. Then form medium or large sized meatballs and place on a cookie sheet or in a pyrex dish. Bake for roughly 25-30 minutes at 375 F. Then enjoy. I topped it off with a tomato sauce I quickly whipped up with a medium sized tomato diced, teaspoon tomato paste, and some dried thyme. This was only for a single serving though, since no one else is the household seems to be huge fans of tomato sauce.

Meatloaf always didn’t appeal to me. But wow, this recipe has put a whole new perspective on meatloaf for me. I’ve become obsessed and would totally eat this everyday. (or maybe not..I was just exaggerating a bit there). The softness (and moistness – I know, everyone hates this word) which is different than a regular meatball just crumbles in your mouth. Yum. Anyways, I put a different spin on this recipe, just a bit.

The original recipe can be found on the link I posted above, but here are the changes I’ve made.

For the meatloaf

1lb grass fed ground beef

1 yellow onion, diced

1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped

¼ cup tomato sauce (made myself – recipe below)

1 egg, whisked

¾ cup almond flour

1 teaspoon fresh basil

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon fresh parsley

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

salt and pepper, to taste

As for the tomato sauce, I cut up one medium/large sized tomato and put it in a hot skillet. Put a bit of water and a tablespoon or so of tomato paste. Threw in some fresh basil, thyme, salt and pepper and let it simmer to a sauce-like consistency. After the sauce was ready, in a large bowl, combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Then put into a loaf pan or pyrex dish and bake. Mine took an hour at 375 F in a loaf pan but I doubled the recipe for 2 pounds of ground beef. So just change the baking time accordingly. This was one of the easiest dinner – takes 5-10 minutes prep time total and then your dinner will be ready shortly. Great for leftovers for lunch to take to work the next day – big plus for me.